05.13
This morning, I did what I usually do. I boarded a cross-town bus. I turned on my Creative Zen Vision:M media player. I settled in for the hour-long ride from Ridgecrest to Beacon Hill.
For one block.
Then, my music was useless, my settling unsettled, and I was… disrupted.
You see, along the way to my office, there is a KinderCare daycare facility. This morning, the bus stopped in front of it, and two adults boarded the bus, accompanied by a howling, writhing chorus of forty. one. children. The bus is NORMALLY standing-room only. Today, one of our first stops is to pick up a whole vast load of children, guaranteeing a very interesting commute. One of the two responsible adults for this gaggle of minor children placed a child in a seat with Mr. Disproportionate Response, guaranteeing that I would have blog material for today and tomorrow.
Shortly after “Sammy” took a seat next to me, he became curious of the goings-on of the children seated all around us. He wanted to bounce, stand, jump, squirm, and perform other extraneous contortions in able to face all of them at once, and carry on 40×10^41 conversations concurrently. In doing so, he damaged my calm. I politely–rather sweetly, even–asked the child to be seated and remain quiet. To my surprise, it worked! For all of a minute!
I then addressed the older lady that was escorting the children, asking her control her child. She smiled at me with a smile as sweet as a reused, unwashed gym sock that was forgotten at the bottom of a damp school locker for the better part of the atheletic season, then addressed the child, “Sit down and leave the man alone, Sammy.” To my surprise, it worked! For all of a minute!
I should also mention that Sammy’s face was leaking. Something rather pussy and viscous was either running down from his nose or climbing up into his brain from his chin, using his nostrils like the New Jersey turnpike tunnels. I think this is the more likely option, as he behavior was decidedly inhuman, and I can only justify this reality in my mind with the possibility that he was being controlled by some alien material, not unlike Venom’s suit in the Spider Man comics, as Sammy was also fighting this infection, trying every few moments to wipe it from his face. This valiant effort, however, was lost on me, as his immediate action after trying to fight it away was to begin bouncing again, and his favorite thing to push off of as he bounced in the seat was my leg. I’m concerned that the symbiotic mass has been planted in my own clothing and it might try to take me over in my sleep. But I digress.
After Ms. Sweaty-sock-smile asked Sammy to behave and he did not, I addressed her again, this time through gritted teeth. If I recall, the exact quote was something to the effect of, “If you do not control your child, I am going to begin exercising my Constitutionally protected right to free speech upon him, and you have no idea how depraved of a man I can be.” This caught her attention, meriting an incredulous, “How dare you” look, followed by hissing at him with a little more urgency, telling him to again sit down and be quiet, but this time with something akin to a mommy-voice. To my surprise, it worked! For all of a minute!
I glowered at the child, shot her a meaningful look, then stared for a moment at the child. I pointed to him and asked the woman if she was going to address this, whereby I received another sweat-sock smile from her, but no more telling Sammy to act less like something from a zoo.
Here is where an important bit of Mr. Disproportionate Response’s philosophy comes in: NEVER threaten anyone. Instead, always be polite, and always be very forthright with someone as to your plan of action. If you say you’re going to do something, do it. So, as promised, I began exercising my free speech upon the child, speaking loudly enough to make sure that he could hear me over the dozen or so friends in our immediate vicinity.
I began my very small-worded musings with the consideration of how much someone’s parents must love them to leave them all alone with strangers all day, and how loving parents would want to see their children more. I talked about the lengths that parents go to in order to deceive their children into leaving them alone, noting the fallacy of the existence of an Easter Bunny. As I started into my feelings on the commercially-trumped, culturally bastardized annual ritual of Christmas, Ms. Sweaty-sock-smile was absolutely aghast at the new chorus of sniffles, moans, and cries, and quickly scooped the now even more leaky Sammy up and took him to her seat.
She took him away before I got a chance to tell them that Santa isn’t real. I feel like a huge dick for telling these kids that their parents don’t love them, and ruining the Easter Bunny for them (at least until someone tells them that I’m a mean, lying old man) but I think that I got through to the guardians of these children that they need to be teaching the kids a little bit of discipline and at least SOME modicum of social grace. This morning, Mr. Disproportionate Response fully lived up to his name.